Tuesday, March 17, 2015

First Dragon Ball Z games, and tournament report

I have a lot of nostalgia about the whole Dragon Ball Z franchise, so its no surprise I've been buying some cards for the newly released DBZ CCG from Panini America. Unfortunately, I've been struggling to find opponents, but thanks to a Heroes and Villains release tournament at Squabbles Trading Cards in Glen Burnie, I was not only able to play the game.... but I was able to learn it!

I'm fairly certain this isn't anything unique. Basically, Trunks has great Power Stages, and can trigger many of the Saiyan bonuses. Given the high Power Stage, he's really effective at Physical Combat. This gives him an advantage against decks focusing on energy attacks, because they won't have the stages to sustain combat, as well as against physical-based decks, because they'll be running at a lower Power Stage. At least, that was my thinking.

I won't bother explaining the deck. First, it's not terribly difficult (that's why I played it!). Second, in some places, its a hodge-podge of cards, because I only had a single copy of some rares I wanted, or didn't really know how to value certain cards.

Anyway, let me at least make mention of the decks I played against (I don't remember my opponents' names, unfortunately).

Practice game 1, against Orange Goku. He started the game by throwing out a lot of drills, and I quickly went into combat. After doing so, I had managed to sit Goku on 0 power levels, and then every turn I kept doing so, causing him to concede. I basically entered combat every chance I could, and after getting Trunks' MP level up, I had pretty good control of the game. I learned quite a bit as well, as the wording on the cards is not easy to understand when starting out.

Tournament game 1, I played the same player, who took Saiyan Nappa. I believe I went first this game, and recklessly entered combat, despite having only a single attack in my hand (I wanted to use Trunks' Sword Stance). What a disaster. Nappa is really good at throwing down some damage, and I quickly was outgunned. Not to be deterred, I continued to foolishly enter combat, only to keep getting beat. I end up losing handily.

Tournament game 2, I play against a Black Nail deck. It feels like the game is going pretty well for me, but then there's just too many great Physical Blocks that destroy my momentum (including Nail's Heritage). Once that pressure was removed, I couldn't get that momentum back, and I end up losing, although at least it was pretty close. I've not given much thought to either of the Namekian MPs as of yet, so it was pretty crazy seeing one of them in action. Eesh.

Practice game 2 was against one of the guys playing in the Finals (I don't know what his final result was), I think. He was playing a Namekian Gohan deck, that tried to get to Level 4, and win MPVV immediately after that. We trade blows, but my Trunks, Resolved lets me set up a great turn of beating, ending with a Saiyan Clothesline, which really takes a chunk out of my opponent's deck. At the end, he only has three Dragon Balls left in the deck, giving me the win, although it was very close.

Tournament game 3, I play against Black Krillin. I'm feeling pretty good about this, because I have been able to keep my opponent's Power Levels low, which hurts energy decks. This guy, man, he must have been packing like 60 blocks. Every single I attack I throw at him gets blocked, and in response, he gradually wears me down, until I'm finally destroyed. I say gradually, but it was not an overly long game. I did get pretty smoked, haha.

So, there you have it. 0-3 in the tournament, good enough for dead last. With that said, I learned a lot about the game, I learned a lot about the cards, and I actually feel a lot more comfortable trying some new decks, and hopefully building some better ones. We'll see. At the moment, I have two decks built- a Red Tenshinhan deck, and a Blue Krillin deck. Both are unplayed, and both will probably have to wait another week to be played, but I'm definitely excited to try them out.